ID: IRCNE2012121693
Date: 2012-12-06
According to "computerworld", Twitter has restricted the ability of attackers to post tweets and perform other actions on behalf of many users who have phone numbers associated with their accounts, but some users need to enable a PIN option in order to be protected.
On Monday, a developer and security researcher named Jonathan Rudenberg reported that attackers can abuse the Twitter accounts of users who added their phone numbers to their profiles in order to use the service via SMS (Short Message Service).
Twitter allows users to control their accounts by sending commands via text messages to phone numbers set up by the company.
The problem is that the origin of text messages can be spoofed and there are services that allow users to do this easily.
If an attacker knows the phone number of a Twitter user and that user associated his phone number with his account, the attacker can issue SMS commands on behalf of the user without actually having access to his phone.
"Our team has already addressed this vulnerability," a Twitter representative said Tuesday via email.
However, it turns out that Twitter's fix does not automatically protect all users. Rudenberg was still able to demonstrate the vulnerability on a test account after Twitter said the vulnerability was addressed.
"Users that use the long codes are vulnerable to spoofing, but can enable the PIN code feature," Rudenberg said Tuesday via email.
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